searching.
'In fact, at least in part, Captain Hoare is why I am here,' Selene Prettyman went on.
'Ma'am?' Hoare whispered. What had this lissome Cleopatra to do with him?
'You are surprised, sir,' she said. 'You are known to Mr. Goldthwait, who thinks well of you.'
Then, seeing that Hoare had not twigged, she offered him a tactful reminder. 'Mr. John Goldthwait, of Chancery Lane.'
Now Hoare remembered. Mr. Goldthwait, a small, lean, weary-looking, unremarkable man, had interrogated him extensively at the Navy Tavern when Hoare had delivered his explanation of the Vantage murder. In some way, Hoare recalled, he must be involved with Admiral Sir Hugh Abercrombie. He found it hard to remember that, though he had never seen the unknown Sir Hugh, since the latter never left London, he was his master and not his host Sir George Hardcastle here in Portsmouth. That, of course, was why Royal Duke flew the White Ensign. Sir Hugh was a Vice Admiral of the White, while Sir George was a mere Rear Admiral of the Blue.
Come to think of it, it had been then, too, that Hoare had been presented to Cumberland's brother, Admiral Duke William of Clarence. In some capacity, Goldthwait had been one of Clarence's train. Was Selene Prettyman likewise part of Cumberland's? If so, why?
'This puzzles you,' Selene Prettyman said. 'Never mind for now. Later, we shall talk. If not tonight, sir, then certainly before I return to London. I am to be found at the Three Suns. Until then…' She turned away with a gracious smile. Delancey disappeared, returning, Hoare suspected, to his Admiral's daughter, his hopes in that quarter evidently still unquenched. 'While the cat's away,' would be Delancey's maxim.
Hoare himself went on up the receiving line to Lady Hardcastle and her husband. In her figure and her fittings, Lady Hardcastle showed the world what her daughter would look like in thirty years. The prospect was not a pleasant one. But as Hoare knew, she was a kindhearted woman and a good wife and mother.
The Admiral acknowledged Hoare's bow for the entire family, then said to the scarlet figure at his side, 'Your Highness, it is my pleasure to present Commander Bartholomew Hoare, of, er, HMS Royal Duke.'
The Duke of Cumberland put his hands on his hips and stared fixedly at Hoare with his one good eye.
' What what? You call yourself Commander of a royal Duke, sir? I'll have you know that we royal Dukes are commanded by no man-except, of course, our father, the King.'
Hoare held his breath. Was Cumberland jesting, or was he really displeased? He stood transfixed, awaiting his doom. The murmured voices within hearing fell silent.
'Haw! I've been waitin' to say that to somebody ever since Abercrombie told me about that yacht of yours. Then I remembered. Me brother Billy told me he'd put a Hoare into Royal Duke. Ought to be t'other way round, of course. Wouldn't be the first time that's happened, as me brother Wales would be the first to admit! Hee hee hee!'
The silent sycophants in the circle broke into their obliging laughter, and Hoare felt his face go red. He would have happily called another man out for that kind of remark, but… challenge Lieutenant General H. R. H. the Duke of Cumberland? He summoned up a weak laugh of his own.
The weak laugh was cut short by a sharp poke in the ribs from the royal fingers, extended daggerlike.
'Hee hee hee!' said Royalty again. 'Just my little joke. Seriously, my man, I've a fancy to inspect your little ship. Never had a chance while she was lyin' in… in…'
'Chatham, Your Highness,' the Admiral supplied.
'Yes, of course. Chatham. Tomorrow, then, what what?' With their what-what's, His Majesty's sons had acquired at least one of their father's idiosyncrasies.
'Aye aye, sir,' Hoare whispered, aghast. He himself had spent little more than twenty-four hours altogether aboard his new command. How was he to make her ready to show off to this royal villain in so short a time? He must shove off forthwith, Duke or no Duke. There was not a moment to lose.
Admiral Sir George Hardcastle had the well-deserved reputation of being a grim and a merciless man. Hoare had already discovered, however, that with respect to Hardcastle's portly daughter, he was neither grim nor merciless. Hoare now perceived the same exception in his Admiral's attitude toward royalty. Both departures from normal were understandable, Hoare thought. In the one case, it could be attributed to love; in the other, to fear. Thus, in the agonized day that was to follow, Admiral Hardcastle gave his subordinate no vestige of support.
'So, Captain Hoare,' came a familiar voice at his elbow. 'You are making your mark among the mighty, I see.
It was Eleanor Graves's friend, Miss Jane Austen, whom he had last encountered in Wells after both had happened to attend the ordination of Arthur Gladden, late Lieutenant of the late Vantage frigate.
'Well met, sir,' she said. 'Lady Hardcastle has been telling me more of your recent good fortune, of which I had known very little.'
'You and Lady Hardcastle are acquaintances, then?' he asked.
'She is a connection of my close friend, Augusta Branson. I am her guest tonight. But tell me, sir: do you remember being introduced to Miss Anne Gladden on the happy occasion of her brother's ordination?'
'Indeed, I do, Miss Austen.' Miss Anne was a classic beauty, blond, blue-eyed, sunny of nature, about nineteen, and very, very small. She would be little taller than Hoare's ward, Jenny.
'A very charming person,' he said noncommittally.
She nodded thoughtfully. 'Infinite riches in a little room,' she observed.
'Pray why do you ask?' Hoare inquired.
'The subject came up,' she said, smiled graciously, and went her way.
Before the perplexed Hoare escaped from the reception, Delancey stopped him to inform him with ill- suppressed glee that he was to warp Royal Duke from her present mooring to a more convenient spot at the lesser naval pier. It would be more convenient, that is, for the boarding of an awkward, lubberly gaggle of landsmen such as Cumberland and his entourage. This movement would have been routine enough for any other of His Majesty's ships. There would be no need to set even one of the brig's beautifully harbor-furled sails.
For Royal Duke, however, her crew and her new Commander, the maneuver made for a morning of public humiliation and private pain.
The performance the day before of Joy, the boatswain, should have warned him. Clay had already warned him that but for one or two, Hoare's crew knew no more about ship handling than so many of Portsmouth's brutes, those red, stumpy women who earned their bread by servicing sailors. Now he was to learn that while Mr. Clay clearly knew what orders to give them, the ship's people, while willing enough, had not the slightest notion of how to obey them.
Not one but both boats put over the side to tow the yacht slipped from their slings as they were lowered. The coxswain of one had forgotten to insert the plug in its bottom, and it quickly filled. Once the tow lines had been passed and the red-faced coxswains had attempted to set a stroke, matters got no better. The oarsmen knew no more of their duty than a bevy of schoolgirls. First, one caught a crab, then another. An oar went adrift.
At last, the yacht began to creep across the short distance to her berth, towing in turn Hoare's own tiny craft, her new tender. If a boat could look mischievous, Neglectful did. The sight began to catch the attention of nearby vessels, and jeering remarks began to pass having to do with 'washerwomen,' 'farmers,' 'whore's delights,' and worse. Echoes of these appellations, Hoare assured himself bitterly, bade fair to spread throughout the fleet and never die.
Perhaps confused by the barrage of insults, the coxswain of the larboard boat ran it afoul of his mate's, breaking one oar and sending still another adrift. The contemptuous laughter grew. The hapless Hoare stood on his command's quarterdeck, watching her first public performance before the crack sailors of the Royal Navy.
By God's grace, Clay had had the foresight to station men in Royal Duke's chains and at the tip of her bowspirit with fending poles. For just as she was gathering way, it became clear to Hoare at least that she was about to run aboard a smart brig, bow to bow.
'Sheer off!' came a cry from the brig. She was Niobe, 18. 'Sheer off, ye gormless lubbers!'
Without audible orders, some of the other vessel's crew began to hang rolled hammocks over her side and pick up poles of their own. The two vessels neared each other like two knights tilting in a nightmare slow-motion tournament, their bowspirits aimed at each other like lances.
But, again by God's grace, Royal Duke's meager tonnage wrought to her benefit. Between them, the two crews boomed their vessels apart. Even the larboard boat avoided being crushed between the two hulls like a
